I watch it and find it to be very interesting. I’m not a Mormon (and never will be) but I have a lot of Mormon (and former Mormon) friends. Some even have polygamous relatives. From my perspective it is much more accurate than the LDS church would like you to believe. People like the Henricksons would definitely be a very tiny minority, but they do exist. And, as was described in the last episode, as long as they pay their taxes, don’t commit welfare fraud or traffic in underage girls they probably won’t be hassled much.
But the regular LDS folks take the word of the “Prophet” as straight from God’s lips so thir attitude is that polygamy was God’s will for a particular time and then things changed. They see no conflict in that.
I am not an LDS member but I have been interested in how the show portrays things. My take is that the show points out that plural marriage is harmful to the people are part of it. Not all of these people are bad and their faith - not some kind of sexual thrill - was the reason they signed on for plural marriage. As a result, they seem to be hurt more and more.
The women try to be good mothers and are in some respects. The father tries to be a good father but falls short when he is unable to acknowledge his son in public for example.
The characters who are members of the mainline LDS or of another faith seem happier on the show.
The acting is great and the story lines have been far better than some other HBO shows that limped to the finish recently.
Last night the ‘leader’ stated that they follow Mormonizm as it was received from Smith - with polygamous behavior originally included - he said something about how can polygamy be simply taken out of the original teaching - he has a point.